Write macro as c++ function

Question

I have this macro for start packet's

#define BEGIN_PACKET_DEF(name, type) typedef struct name {\
int8_t header;\
static size_t size() { return sizeof(name); }\
name() { memset(this, 0, sizeof(name)); header = type; }

And this for ending packet's

#define END_PACKET_DEF(name) } name;

And i want to change it as a c++ function. As name says is an define to start packet definition The BEGIN_PACKET_DEF will add auto the int8_t header; in each packet

Example usage :

    BEGIN_PACKET_DEF(Name_struct,HEADER)
 // some packet's data
   END_PACKET_DEF(Name_packet)

I need some help to rewrite those macro as C++ functions and to do same effect like macros, I just don't like to use macros.

Answer 1

I just don't like to use macros.

This kind of BEGIN_ END_ type macro pairs is one of their rare valid uses, and you generally can't replace them with functions to achieve the same effect.

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The closest you can get in c++ without a macro, is to define a variadic template struct, that forwards the type parameters to a std::tuple. You can see my old question¹ here how that can be done.

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¹⁾_{Don't care about the downvotes, the question was valid, and the answer was good. Actually that had been used to go in production.}